Turn Worry into Prayer

Living Emunah By Rabbi David Ashear

When someone is in need of money and he doesn't have a natural means to obtain it, it can become a very painful experience. The person will most likely worry about his expenses every waking moment. He'll have trouble sleeping at night and concentrating on anything else during the day. However, if he works hard to strengthen his emunah, he can turn that potentially very difficult situation into a spiritual elevation and get closer to Hashem. Hashem can help the person in the blink of an eye. Strengthening emunah and tefila can do wonders. A man told that he runs a chesed organization and at least a few times a month he has to borrow a trailer to move large things. Each time, he had to borrow it from different people and it got to a point that he needed it a couple of times a week and it was getting too difficult to borrow. He calculated that he could designate 6000 shekel from the organization to try and buy a used one. He found a salesman who laughed at his offer and said that number wasn't even close to what the price was. He decided his only choice was to pay full price and then figure out how to raise the money later. He misplaced the number of that dealer and so he called his friend who gave it to him to get it again. The friend encouraged him to forget the dealer and pray to Hashem to help his organization get the trailer. His friend then told him, just the other day he was in the breakfast room in his place at work and there was nothing to eat. He prayed to Hashem to give him a poppy seed bagel and, sure enough, just five minutes later a man walked in with bagels and one of them was a poppy seed bagel. He took the advice and he began praying hard for a trailer. A week later, he found another one on sale for 11,000 shekel. He tried to bargain with the salesman, who was willing to go down to 9,000. The salesman then asked why he needed it. The man replied, for his chesed organization. The salesman said, "What? chesed organization? I want to have a share in the chesed that this trailer will do." He then gave him the trailer for free and said he was going to be his partner in chesed, and just like that the organization got a trailer free of charge. The power of emunah and tefila is truly wondrous. A rabbi said he was on the phone with a congregant who told him that he was out of ideas finding a way to finish paying last year's tuition balance for his children's school. The school wasn't going to give him admission cards for the upcoming year until his previous balance was paid. While they were on the line, the rabbi got a call from another congregant. The rabbi told the first man he would call him back. The second congregant had an issue that he was dealing with and needed the rabbi's advice. At the end of their long conversation, the rabbi asked this man if he perhaps wanted to help someone clear their tuition balance and allow their children to get into yeshiva this year. The man said, "Absolutely yes! And, Hashem, please let it be a zechut to solve my problem." And just like that the man's balance was cleared. Another man told me, he received a phone call from an old childhood friend who lives in another country. This friend said he was marrying off a child and asked if perhaps he knew people who could help. The man tried to make some phone calls but got only a few hundred dollars. That same day his eight year-old daughter came home saying she wanted to make a lemonade stand for charity and she wanted to do it with her friends. They said it was a great idea and planned to do it on Sunday to raise the money for this needy bride. Amazingly, that day they made $1800 from generous people driving by. Then they found someone who was flying to that country the following week, and the man making the wedding had the money in his hand, just one week later. Hashem has many ways of helping. If we can turn our worry into heartfelt prayer and work harder on our emunah, we can take a potentially difficult experience and turn it into a great avodat Hashem.